by Ed Greenwood
Tasnya did not disappoint her slave, though her voice dripped with irony. “Do you go forth, loyal Sressa,” she told the erinyes, “and take an interest in Nergal’s doings. Harm him if you can, and snatch away unharmed his human captive if possible, bringing it here to me. Tasnya has uses for mortal wizards—and blundering archdevils who come raging hence to recover them, too.”
Nine
WHO’S KILLING THE GREAT LORDS OF WATERDEEP?
Many-spined, tormented, crawling …
[images of a fat, wheezing man and a slender lass, hurrying through a city at night]
YOU’RE TAKING ME ON THROUGH ALL OF THIS? THERE’S BEST BE SOME VIVID AND USEFUL MEMORIES OF MAGIC BY THE END OF IT, ELMINSTER, OR I’LL GIVE YOU MEMORIES OF AGONY THAT WON’T SOON FADE.
AND DON’T TELL ME YOU’VE HEARD SUCH THREATS BEFORE.
[silence]
WELL?
I but follow thy wish, devil, and so remain silent.
HUMMPH. INSIDE, YOU BURN AS DARK AS ANY DEVIL, DON’T YOU?
[smiling silence]
GET ON WITH IT, WIZARD!
“We’ll use the tunnel,” Mirt rumbled. “I’ve no time for pleasantries with courtiers.”
“Do you ever?” Asper replied, amused. Mirt merely grunted. He’d been hurrying through the darker streets and alleys, his old boots flapping, for some time now, and retained little breath left for talk. For once.
Asper could hear him wheezing along ahead of her, his breath a constant whistle in the night. The Old Wolf waved his sword carelessly in one hand and moved with surprising speed. Asper tried to keep her eyes on all the night’s darker shadows, tensely alert for an attack she hoped would never come.
Mirt made no attempts at stealth or caution. He charged through the night like an angry bull, heading around the rocky arm of Mount Waterdeep on which the Castle stood. He scrambled through alleys, rubbish heaps, and backyards hung with washing. Mirt began to growl deep in his throat, a rising and falling rumble that boded ill for whoever—or whatever—got in his way. As usual.
They crossed Gem Street at a lumbering run, nearly bowling over a watch patrol. Mirt plunged down a side street. Asper ducked under a grasping watchman’s arm and scrambled after him, ignoring angry shouts to stop.
Mirt was fumbling with something at his belt. “Here,” he snarled at her, thrusting his sword into her hand.
“Hold this!”
“I hear those words at least thrice a day,” Asper panted. She turned … to face watch officers charging down the alley. Trust her lord to relieve himself at a time like this. But, no—
Mirt turned with a louder growl than usual and dived at the ankles of the foremost officer. That unfortunate shrieked in protest as Mirt heaved him up into the air and flung him like a child’s doll back into his colleagues. They crashed together with a meaty smack that made Asper wince.
Mirt spun back toward her. In one hairy hand he held a length of silken cord that ran up to his belt; its other end was tied to a key, which he had hidden in his codpiece. He fetched up against one wall of the alley.
“Hah!” he said an instant later. A stray beam of moonlight winked on the key as he let it fall and dangle, turning back toward her. “Come on, lass!” he roared. “In with you!”
Without waiting for a reply, he spun about to boot aside the reaching staff of an officer of the watch. “We haven’t time for these fools!” he snarled, wrestling the man aside and slamming him into the nearest wall.
Asper dived past him into deeper darkness. Mirt’s fingertips trailed along her shoulder. He followed, kicking aside the grasping hand of the man he had felled so that it wouldn’t get caught in the door.
“Perhaps later,” he said with a ferocious smile. He leaned close to the watchman’s startled face, displayed his discolored teeth, and slammed the door shut.
“Where are we, Lord?” Asper whispered softly and urgently in the darkness. Mirt chuckled.
“In Shyrrhr’s house,” he replied. “Stand still, lass, while I find a lamp.” He deftly plucked his sword out of her hands, as though he could see perfectly.
“There’s no need,” a cool voice said out of the darkness. “I’ve one ready.” A door opened with the faintest of grating noises. A hood rose from a lantern perhaps four paces away. “Welcome … Mirt?”
“Aye, Lady.” Asper could hear her lord smiling. “Your alarm still works, I see.”
Before them stood a tall, beautiful lady in slippers and a sleeping gown of emerald green worked with gold. She held the lantern in one hand and what looked like a wand in the other. Her eyes matched her gown. She smiled.
“Up to your tricks again, Old Wolf?”
Mirt unconcernedly stuffed the key back into his codpiece. “Lady, meet my lady, Asper. Asper, this is the Lady Shyrrhr. I know you’ve seen each other from afar many times at court, so perhaps we can dispense with all the tongue work. We’re in a hurry, Sheer, to reach the palace.”
Shyrrhr’s eyebrows rose. “Come,” she said simply, and led them through several doors and down a steep spiral stair. “If you were not who you are, Mirt,” she added softly, as they descended into cool dampness, “I would not let you pass this way. All is not well at the palace.”
Mirt stared hard at her bronzen hair, as if the weight of his gaze could lay bare the thoughts in her head. “Nor outside it,” he grunted shortly. “Watch officers followed us here.”
Shyrrhr chuckled musically. “I know I can always count on you for an entertaining evening, Old Wolf. No offense, Lady Asper.”
“None taken, Lady,” Asper replied.
The stair ended in a stone-lined tunnel. Shyrrhr handed Asper a lamp from a shelf where a row of them stood ready. “He always drops them,” she said, looking with her eyes to Mirt as she lit it. “Go in speed. Gods watch.”
“And over you, Lady,” Asper replied.
Shyrrhr waved and smoothly slipped back up the stairs. “I’ll talk away the watch for you,” she called back softly.
Mirt grunted. “Tamaeril Bladesemmer and the wizard Resengar are dead this night, Lady. Guard yourself.”
Shyrrhr turned. Her eyes were very green. “I always do,” she said softly. “I thank you for the news, Mirt. Tell me more when you can.” She turned again and was gone.
Mirt nodded in answer. “A good lass, Sheer. No doubt she has some envoy or other upstairs, spilling news they never intended to as they empty her wine decanters.”
Asper crooked an eyebrow. “I take it you’ve emptied her decanters a time or two, without spilling whatever she wished to learn.”
Mirt grinned. “She’s Piergeiron’s best agent,” he said dryly, “but not a lord, if you take my meaning. If Piergeiron were to marry again, though, I’d not be surprised to find Shyrrhr at his side kneeling before the priests.”
He grinned again, and strode forward down the tunnel. “Watch sharp, now. The stones’re none too level.” He wheezed and moved faster in a lumbering trot. “Hold that lantern high, lass, and pray to Tymora that we’re in time!”
I’VE WAITED MORE THAN LONG ENOUGH FOR EVEN A PALTRY THING OF MAGIC. THERE HAD BEST BE MORE—AND BETTER, TOO! WIZARD, YOU ENTERTAIN ME, BUT YOU WASTE MY TIME.
Ye have other pressing engagements, Lord Nergal?
[growl, mental slap]
[pain gasping pain]
[teeth bared; satisfaction]
Torgent was old for a man trusted to guard the lord’s person. His mustaches were snow-white, no longer gray, and his shoulders lacked the bulk and weight of years gone by. He still stood as proud as ever in his livery, and none had ever seen him as much as yawn on a night watch.
The three men under him could not match his years with all of theirs put together, but it was his old ears that heard it first: the soft scrape of a leather sole on one of the stones down the tunnel.
“Ready, lads!” Torgent snapped. “Someone comes!”
Ready-loaded crossbows were snatched up. Torgent drew his sword and raised his shield before him. He
stood behind the great spiked and iron-barred gate to challenge whomever was coming. Waterdeep the Mighty depended upon him, and he was ready.
“Stand and declare yourselves, in truth and without omission,” he issued the traditional challenge. His deep voice boomed in the tunnel. Through its echoes two came forward in haste, one rotund and puffing, the other slim and lithe. Both bore drawn blades.
“Torgent! ’Tis I, Mirt of Waterdeep, with my lady, Asper,” Mirt roared as he came up to the gate. “We must see Piergeiron, speedily, so tell your lads to put down those bows and open the gate as fast as they know how!”
“Mirt! Well met, Old Wolf!” Torgent chuckled, tossing sword and shield aside. The gate clanged and clattered as all present heaved at it from both sides to raise it.
“Not so much of the ‘old,’ youngling,” Mirt growled as he rolled up from under the gate’s iron spikes to clasp Torgent’s gauntleted hand. “Where’s Piergeiron, this hour?”
Torgent looked troubled, even as he smiled and handed Asper to her feet. “Lady,” he said automatically, bowing. His face fell grim again. “The lord is no doubt in the Inner Audience Chamber, under heavy guard. I’m glad you’ve come. He’s not himself, these last few days.” The other guards murmured agreement. They wrestled the gate down again. “Keeps his armor on day and night, with the visor down. He’s always been one to use words sparingly, but he says even less lately. Just ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and ‘next’ and ‘enough.’ I’d take it kindly if you’d let us know what’s amiss.”
Mirt’s frown was black.
With a little shiver, Asper saw him in memory—once again in the saddle in his mercenary days, hearing of the treachery of a Tethyrian noble and vowing to repay it.
The blade in Mirt’s hand leaped a little. Seeing it move, one of the younger guards reached for his own sword out of habit.
“I’ll tell you what I can, when I can,” Mirt said, striding on. “My thanks, Tor. I know the way.” And he was gone, boots flapping. Asper danced at his elbow on lighter feet.
Torgent turned back to the gate, a fierce smile on his face. “Now, by my sword, we’ll see something! I’d see the back of all this mystery, lads—and that man’ll do it where others would strike stone and fall back. There’ll be some wild times ahead, or I miss my guess!” He sat down again whistling a jaunty old marching song.
The younger guards exchanged glances, shrugged, and grinned. More than one of them stole a look the way Mirt and Asper had gone, Not one remarked on Asper’s beauty. Torgent looked just a mite stirred up for that.
MAGIC, ELMINSTER? WHEN DO WE GET TO THE MAGIC?
Soon, devil, soon.
THAT REFRAIN HAS COME SO MANY TIMES, IT’S ALMOST A CHANT.
That it is, Nergal. Would ye like the entire ballad?
[disgust] GET ON WITH SHOWING ME REMEMBRANCES, WIZARD. I’LL NOT SIT STILL FOR YOUR SINGING.
[amusement, bright images flashing]
They took a secret passage, and another, and avoided most guards and almost all servants. Mirt was known, and his ready passwords and display of a signet ring of Waterdeep carried them swiftly to the doors of the Inner Audience Chamber.
The guards held ready blades and moved them aside not a finger’s width while their captain went in to announce them. He was a long time coming out again. When he did, his voice was cold.
“The Lord Piergeiron will see you both. Reluctantly. Lay down your blades and follow.”
Mirt shrugged and dropped his blade. He had others, to spare, about him. Asper handed hers hilt-first to the nearest guard.
“Cheery greeting, indeed,” Mirt said, matching the guard captain’s cold stare with the steel of his own anger. Were he not a lord of Waterdeep, he’d have little way of even reaching the First Lord. These guards did not know his true standing.
Were they not lords, his friends would not now be dead—nor would warning Piergeiron be necessary.
Mirt’s face was as dark as his mood as he stalked into the gloom of the Inner Audience Chamber. Ahead, Piergeiron sat in full armor under a single lamp.
“Dismissed,” Mirt snapped at the guard captain.
The guard ignored him. Who did this fat moneylender think himself to be, anyway? Lord of all lords in Waterdeep?
Piergeiron’s silent gesture reinforced Mirt’s order.
Mirt waved to Asper with one finger to keep her eyes on Piergeiron. No sooner had the guard closed the door than the Old Wolf spun about, a dagger appearing from somewhere about his person to flash through the air and transfix the bell-rope not four inches from the First Lord’s hand.
Asper gasped.
Mirt stomped forward, leaped on Piergeiron, jammed iron fingers into the visor-swivel, and jerked it upward as they crashed together to the floor.
“I thought not,” he snarled, staring into shocked brown eyes within. “Who are you, and what have you done with Piergeiron?” Without waiting for a reply or shifting his gaze, he snapped, “Take that wrist, lass, and hold it up over his head! ’Ware daggers!”
The struggles beneath him were feeble. In another instant he had the helm unbuckled. He tore it off with more haste than gentleness—to reveal the frightened face of a lass younger than Asper!
“Now just who might—Aleena?” Mirt growled, hand bringing yet another dagger up to the bare throat of the girl in armor.
“Y-yes.” Aleena swallowed, face marble-white, jaw trembling. She lifted her chin and looked angrily at him. “Is—did you try to slay my father?” When she spoke, her voice had the full, deep boom of a large man of middle years: Piergeiron, defender of Waterdeep. It sounded odd indeed, coming from such delicate lips.
Mirt frowned and rolled off her, waving Asper back. “Nay, of course not,” he growled. “What befell? Come girl, quickly! Tell! Lords of Waterdeep have died this night! What happened to your father, and why are you wearing his armor? Piergeiron would never agree to using you as bait to trap a blade that missed him once!”
Aleena nodded, sadly. “Father’s in no condition to agree to, or forbid, anything. He lies in Blackstaff Tower, deep asleep. Someone almost slew him, three nights ago.”
Mirt bristled. “And we were not told? How is he?”
Aleena shrugged. Her eyes were moist. “He lives. Laeral poured a good seven healing potions down him. He’d—been run through, more than once. He—oh, gods weep, Mirt!” She clung to him and burst into tears. Mirt patted her awkwardly, turning to Asper with an appeal in his eyes.
Asper fetched the nearest decanter and poured out a glass of whatever it was.
Mirt thanked her with a glance and held it to Aleena’s lips. She shook her head violently through her tears. “Too much already,” she said. Mirt shrugged and drained the glass himself.
“I’ve been so scared!” Aleena sobbed. “Sitting here, waiting for the killers to come again … I can’t even touch this sword! It’s father’s holy blade, even if I knew how to fence as the warriors do!”
Asper gently shouldered Mirt aside and knelt to put her arms around Aleena. The grand plate armor was cold and hard as she embraced it.
Aleena blinked at her with a watery smile. “M-my pardon, Lady,” she said desolately, “I—it is not right to weep before strangers. I am Aleena, daughter to Piergeiron. Might I know your name?”
Asper smiled. “I am Asper. Mirt is my man. We came here to warn your father, I fear: two lords of Waterdeep, at least, have been slain tonight. The Lady Tamaeril Bladesemmer is dead; she managed a sending to my lord, and we know that one man, masked and able to get somehow within her wards, slew her. Earlier, the wizard Resengar was killed in his own parlor. Do you know of others?”
Aleena shook her head. “I do not even know the full count of who is a lord and who is not. Laeral did tell me that Mirt was, ere she sent me here.”
Mirt stared, the decanter already half-empty in his hand. “Laeral sent you? What foolishness is this?”
Aleena lifted her chin again. “Lord,” she said softly, “ ’tis my duty to Wate
rdeep, as your service is yours. The palace throne could not be seen to be empty, else this man or men, and their backers, would know they’d succeeded—and what might befall the City of Splendors then? An army, attacking? Fleets? All slaughter that we might prevent!”
“Men, you say,” Mirt said, frowning, ignoring her other words. “How many attacked your sire?”
Aleena shrugged. “None here know. He used a teleport ring Khelben gave him long ago, to come to us in Blackstaff Tower. The Blackstaff is gone walking the planes these nineteen days now, on some work or other he spoke nothing of, to me. Laeral and I nursed him. When we had done what we could, she told me I must wear father’s armor and sit the throne here, being of height to do so. I agreed. We washed it up, and she laid a spell upon me, so that”—a smile touched her lips, and slid away again—“I sound like father when I speak. A comical effect, I’m told.”
Mirt grinned. “I’d think twice about embracing you, with your visor down, aye. So what now?”
Aleena spread her gauntleted hands. “I-I don’t know. I can’t sleep for worrying over father. I’m sick at heart over deciding who should hang or who owes who what damages or—all of it! I know not how father or anyone does it, day upon day! I-I can’t go like this much longer.” She wrinkled her nose. “As well, I stink to the very heavens in this armor, and soon enough those who know father will know that the smell is not right for him.”
Mirt and Asper chuckled. “Yes, it grows strong, with your helm off,” Asper said. “Let’s go to Blackstaff Tower and talk with Laeral, then, or we’ve reached a trail’s end.”
Mirt nodded. “Aye, indeed. Put on that helm again, and we’ll get you a bath if nothing else.”
Aleena smiled. “How did you know, so quickly?”
Mirt shrugged. “The way you sat. The way you waved to the guard. The way you didn’t look offended beforehand at the dirty joke you would’ve known I’d be making as I greeted you—all that on top of what Torgent said.”
“Torgent?”